His Donna Was Never Legally His Chapter 09

His Donna Was Never Legally His Chapter 09

Matteo searched along the river until dawn.

Daylight brought no warmth.

Instead, the cold sank into his bones.

His assistant rushed over in a panic.

“Boss, something happened. You need to see the news!”

Matteo opened his phone and found scandals about him plastered across every media outlet.

They included fathering a child outside his marriage and abusing his power.

Matteo hurried back to Moretti Holdings.

It took considerable effort to force the media to pull the stories and stabilize the company’s plummeting

stock price.

More trouble followed.

A portion of Moretti Holdings’ shares had fallen into the hands of a Rival Family’s front company, creating

serious complications.

Yet Matteo wasn’t angry at all.

He almost laughed.

He could tell Ava was behind it.

She had never been the kind of woman to swallow humiliation and admit defeat.

Matteo didn’t have a moment to rest.

While dealing with the fallout, he hired countless boats and called in every favor he had to search the

Hudson River and the towns along its banks.

Everyone assumed they were looking for a body.

Whenever Matteo heard that, his voice turned terrifyingly cold.

“You’re looking for a person. A living person. Ava isn’t dead!”

He had gone so many days and nights without sleep that he had neglected Luca for a long time as well.

Luca walked over to him and complained, “Papa, that woman is dead. So what? You still have Mom…”

“Shut up!”

Matteo’s voice rose sharply, filled with restrained fury.

“Haven’t I told you? Ava your mother too, and she’s still alive!”

His eyes blazed with barely contained fury.

He looked like a beast on the verge of snapping.

Luca had never seen his father look so frightening.

He stumbled backward, fell, and burst into tears.

Hearing him cry, Mia hurried over and helped him up.

Jealous hatred flashed through her eyes.

“Matteo, Luca’s only worried about you.”

Matteo merely looked away with cold indifference.

“Mia, stop filling Luca’s head with nonsense.”

Mia’s voice turned hoarse as she cried.

“Matteo, what does Ava have that I don’t? She tormented you, betrayed you, and got involved with one man

after another.”

“We even have a child together. Why can’t you turn around and look at me?”

Matteo’s voice was calm and cold.

“You could never compare to her.”

“Not even to a single strand of her hair.”

“If you hadn’t given birth to Luca, I never would’ve gone behind Ava’s back to see you.”

Mia’s eyes filled with resentment.

Luca cried out when she squeezed him too hard.

Matteo looked at her coldly.

“Until Ava comes back, I don’t want her seeing you.”

Mia stormed away, cursing Ava to remain at the bottom of the river forever.

Matteo lit a cigarette.

He had quit smoking after Ava told him she hated the smell.

As smoke curled around him, Matteo remembered the first time he had seen her.

He had just become the Moretti Family’s Underboss.

Back then, he handled everything himself.

During an inspection of the Family winery in upstate New York, a sudden landslide trapped him and several

workers in the mountains for 3 days and 3 nights

Ava had been part of a volunteer rescue team.

With nothing but her bare hands, she dug out a narrow path and found them.

She chiseled open the entrance, and sunlight poured inside, surrounding her with a halo.

Ava smiled brightly.

“Don’t be afraid. You’re safe now.’

Matteo stared at her in a daze.

Then he saw her hands, scraped raw and covered in bloody blisters.

His heart skipped a beat.

After that, he couldn’t look away.